Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State on Friday presented to the State House of Assembly the State 2022 budget of N276 billion.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Governor Ayade christened the 2022 budget of the State the budget of conjugated agglutination in continuation of his odd naming of the State budgets.
Ayade said that the budget was a continuation of budgets of previous years with no new capital projects intended for the year.
“The state budget for the 2022 fiscal year is N276 billion. Out of this, N101 billion is for recurrent expenditure and N175 billion is for capital expenditure.
“We are going to focus on completing existing projects with the view to making them functional.
“Regular payment of salaries is also a priority in the 2022 fiscal year,” he said.
Ayade added that the government was considering keeping aside a special fund for payment of gratuities of retired civil servants in the state.
According to him, this is to ensure a gradual reduction of the backlog of gratuities owed retirees in the state.
“It is my dream that all retirees get their gratuities with less stress,” the governor said.
He solicited the cooperation of the house of assembly for speedy passage of the budget.
“I also appeal that you and other well meaning citizens of Cross River join in the task of delivering on our numerous developmental projects for the benefit of our people,” he said.
Responding, the Speaker of the house, Etteng Williams, assured the governor that the house would do all within its powers to ensure early passage of the budget.
“We will corporate with you to deliver on this administration’s laudable projects through early passage of the budget,” he said.
TNG reports since 2016, Governor Ayade has maintained the tradition of the odd naming of the State budgets.
While the 2016 budget of the State was named budget of deep vision, the 2017 budget of the State was named budget of infinite transposition, and the 2018 budget was named budget of kinetic crystallization.
Following the similar odd pattern, Ayade named the 2019 budget of Cross River State as budget of quabalistic densification, the 2020 budget of the State as budget of olimpotic meristemasis, the 2021 budget as budget of blush and bliss.
TNG reports Governor Ayade has one more budget to name for Cross River State before he is out of office in 2023.